The US city of Portland has won an Intelligent Transportation Society (ITS) of America award for using transportation technology to tackle road congestion, traffic safety and environmental problems.

The ‘ITS America Smart City Award’ has been given mainly for the city’s collaborative project with the Climate Trust and private sector companies to reduce traffic congestion, fuel consumption and CO2
emissions by using technology to optimise the timing of traffic signals, according to ITS CEO and President Scott Belcher.

“This innovative project has eliminated more than 157,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions in just six years – the equivalent of removing 30,000 passenger vehicles from the road for an entire year,” said Belcher.

The city’s other important initiatives include applying transit signal priority systems for buses, deploying a truck signal priority programme for better freight movement and deploying an advance information system to reroute travellers in real time around accidents.